


for the hopelessly nostalgic

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coulson is such a fool, Don't Touch Lola, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, I APOLOGIZE, Kissing, Makeouts in Lola are always a good idea, Nothing Personal feels, POV Phil Coulson, Season 2 feels, Skye is the Best Thing Ever, post episode, ugh too much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2473625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Mack's comment Coulson decides to pay a visit to Lola. He's not the only one.</p><p>(Shameless post-2x04 fluff)</p>
            </blockquote>





	for the hopelessly nostalgic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts).



He's not sure what makes him go to their garage that night.

Maybe it was Mack's comments about Lola.

Maybe he realizes that he hasn't been to see the car in months and something tugs at him about that. He doesn't like running away from things, he believes in the value of facing things.

He used to, anyway.

So here he is, in the middle of the night, everybody asleep, and he's come down to find out if something really bothers him about looking at his broken down car. He guesses it's officially his now. Lola had always been suspended in some sort of bureaucratic no man's land in which she officially belonged to SHIELD but no one questioned it was Coulson's. She officially belonged to Director Fury, Coulson guesses, in a nebulous way, so now it's probably just his in all certainty. Now that she's damaged and useless and locked away in a garage, the car is finally his.

It's hard not to look for the meaning in everything when you are dying.

Coulson looks for the switch in the darkness.

He admits he almost has a damn heart attack when he turns on the lights and discovers someone else is in here.

"Skye?" he calls out.

She lifts her head, as startled as him. She's sitting in Lola's passenger seat.

In a moment Coulson realizes that, obviously, no one else could have been here. It had to be Skye. Not bad luck or irony, it just – it makes sense.

He wants to hesitate, go on with the plan – his wonderful, so-intelligent plan, the sacrosanct fucking plan he's come to resent, and he's come to resent himself for coming up with it – smoothly, turn around and walk away. Hesitate at least. Come on, Phil, show a little doubt. But he doesn't; he starts walking towards Skye and Lola, the stale air of the garage getting in his lungs.

Skye straightens up in the seat, not quite meeting his eyes when she talks to him.

"Sorry, sir, I didn't know anyone was going to come in."

"I didn't know anyone was here," Coulson says.

When he reaches the car he has the chance to take a closer look at Skye – it's not something he's done a lot of recently, _look at Skye_ , he knows – and specially her eyes. They're bigger than usual and they look red.

"Where you crying?" he asks.

"What? _No_ ," she lies. She turns her face away for a moment. He admires her pride. Then again, he always has.

If she was crying it must have been hours ago. There's only traces of it now.

She gestures towards the dashboard.

"I'm sorry, this is your – I shouldn't..."

She starts for the door but Coulson gets in the driver's seat and Skye seems to think better of it, if only for the surprise of his sudden company. He guesses why this is a move she wasn't expecting.

After that she seems stuck, not knowing how to react. She freezes, like she's trying to minimize her presence.

But it's unsettling to think how much she looks like she belongs here. Of course that's only Coulson's very biased opinion. They had always looked good together, Skye and Lola. He never really minded – and he knows his reputation of being quite anal about the car. But Skye never felt like a disturbance. Maybe he should ask Mack to fix the car, pretty it up and just give it to Skye when he's dead. He should start making that sort of arrangements, anyway. He wonder what Skye would think about that; she wouldn't be very happy about it, would she. She would take care of Lola, of course, but it would probably feel like a burden to her. A bad idea then, he decides, he'd better let the car rot in here.

Coulson tries to get comfortable in his seat, try to get the old familiarity with Lola back. Something seems wrong about it, like he can't quite remember how he used to seat at the steering wheel. He used to feel so smug when he was driving. She's still beautiful, of course. Cracked glass and bullet holes and deflated wheels and all. She could get back in form. The reasons he has for not letting Mack work on her have to do with himself, not the car. Perhaps it's unfair after all – letting Lola die the slow death of a dark garage just because that is his own fate. When this all started he promised himself he wouldn't let others suffer because of his frustration.

Even now it's already too late for that.

"What were you doing here, anyway?" he asks Skye, trying to sound gentle about it. It's not like she was doing anything wrong.

He watches her shoulder go up ever so slightly. She's looking outwards.

"I was just, you know, feeling nostalgic," she replies.

It's weird to hear that word from her mouth.

" _Nostalgic_? About Lola?" Skye nods. Coulson had imagined the car would bring some bad memories for her, complicated at least. "Her last mission wasn't precisely something you'd want to remember."

He himself feels an unwelcome rush at the memory, that particular kind of panic rising in his chest again, like it was all a lie and he never saved her, they never got out of the Bus in time.

Skye turns to meet his eyes. There's something animated, almost cheerful in her eyes when she talks.

"You don't think so? That's why I was getting nostalgic. When we escaped from Ward and –"

"We almost plummetted to our deaths? I didn't know that was a day you'd want to reminisce about."

"Maybe not _the whole_ day," she says, maybe smiling a bit.

Like he didn't know.

He can't know everything, he will never know everything – but he was there with her, afterwards. By her side, quietly, studying the wreck Ward had made of her that day.

He looks around, realizing something. "This is not the first time you've been here."

She drops her gaze.

"I thought Lola might be lonely," she replies. "You haven't been to see her."

"No," he admits.

Skye lifts her legs, and he would normally be worried about feet on the seat but Lola is already wrecked and he knows Skye doesn't mean to be disrespectful, she tends to sit like that. She rests her chin on her knees for a moment.

"So I do this," she says. "I go back to those moments. When you – You went and rescue me, you risked your life. It was so exciting, all other stuff aside. And I felt like you cared about me. Sometimes I come here because I want to remember that."

He got into the car resolved not to talk about this, even if Skye pressed. But against those words? He can't stay quiet. Why did he think he could win this one? The sacrosanct plan. What a joke.

"I still care about you," he tells her.

"No, you don't," Skye says, so sure of it, and there is a surprising lack of self-pity in the statement. "You used to. And I have to accept that has changed. But sometimes I still... indulge myself, like tonight."

Coulson keeps telling himself that he knew what he was doing. That he was causing Skye pain on purpose, because he thought that might keep her safe. Maybe he was underestimating how important his presence was for her. Maybe he was underestimating... _many_ things. But part of why he has been avoiding her is that he doesn't want to face the consequences of that choice he made. He knows he's causing her pain, but he's not sure he can stand to see the living proof of that. But Skye's eyes are red and it's too late for that. He was right: he can't stand it.

He wants to touch and comfort her, knowing that he can't.

He needs to look away. He can't keep looking at her, not right now.

"I remember the first time I ever drove Lola," he says instead. "She looked so... incandescent. So shiny. And she wasn't precisely young. But I was so worried of putting a scratch on her."

"Coulson, you drive like a madman," Skye says, and he finds it very funny, not just that she noticed but that she has an opinion on it.

"Well, that took time. I was really cautious at first."

"I cannot imagine you being cautious in a car," she says, and smiles to herself a bit.

She's always liked these confidences between them, she's always liked when he talks to her, which – yes, he knew what he was doing.

He keeps on talking, hoping she still likes it.

(Does Skye still like him?)

"I miss it sometimes, those first days. When I wasn't sure I deserved to be driving such a car. When I felt like I was getting aways with something mischevious. Well, that was a long time ago, anyway."

He can feel Skye's amusement even before he gets to hear it in her voice.

"Who's getting nostalgic now?" she teases him.

"Yeah."

God he has missed talking to her. He knows he's doing this for a reason but – Jesus, he just misses this a lot. More than he imagined he would.

Skye clears her throat, rather dramatically.

"Are you okay?" she asks. "Because you don't sound okay right now."

She hadn't asked this before, the question he was so fearing.

He can feel the muscles of his jaw tighten – and visibly, too, he can only imagine. And he lets out a sigh before he can stop himself.

The question, the one he was afraid of.

Skye seems to _regret it_ though, because she makes this gesture with her hand, urging him to forget it.

"Look, I learned that you can't _make_ people care about you a long time ago, when I was eight," she says instead, and that's worse than anything he has been so scared of. "I'm not trying to, I swear. And I know I've been unprofessional and probably annoying. I'm sorry. I was just worried about you."

"Skye, Skye, please, stop," he pleads. It's breaking his heart. "Don't apologize, please."

He covers his face with his hand. He wonders if it's worth it. Keeping her safe. Or the illusion of keeping her safe.

He what she's doing, this trick, a staple of Skye. He knows where she learned it and why. That's why he can't – 

He draws a breath she can't see. It smells of the garage but it smells of Lola still. She's been kept in good condition, apart from the obvious. No other car smells like this. It's in the leather, he knows, intellectually. And yes he sometimes thinks about that as well, Lola's last flight, and the memory is not completely unwelcome. Yes, that was a hard day. But the bottom line was that he got Skye safe.

He almost misses the fact that Skye is talking to him again.

This time in that resolved voice he knows so well.

"I can't be happy about it but I trust you," she says. "And I trust you have a reason for... not wanting me around anymore. But I wish I knew what it was."

Coulson curls his fingers around the wheel. He turns to her.

"It was a pretty daring rescue, wasn't it?" he says, tilting his head towards the bullet holes on the windshield. "Just jumping off the Bus like that, on this old thing."

"Lola is not old," Skye says, frowning.

"But she's broken now," he points out. He sounds so pathetic to himself right now. Of all the people in the world he didn't want to be like this in front of Skye.

"But I believe she can be fixed," she says, looking ahead, looking into the future once more. "I mean, I sort of have to believe it."

"Skye."

She turns towards him once more. Her eyes don't look that red anymore, but they are dark and big, as always. No wonder he's had to hide.

"I'm not well," Coulson confesses, and watches Skye swallow hard at those words. "I'm not well and I don't see an exit. I'm afraid I might become dangerous. That I'm already are dangerous. Specially to you."

She waits a moment before saying something.

"Does this have something to do with those symbols you had me investigate?"

He nods. "But you figured that much."

"I'm not an idiot, Coulson."

"No," he agrees, and then he realizes something. "Maybe that's why I put you on the job. Maybe I was hoping you'd find out."

"Well I haven't. You still have to tell me everything."

No, he thinks. There are too many things to tell. From Project TAHITI. From what he's found of John Garrett's last hours. From the secret conversations he's had with Ward that he hopes she never knows about.

He can't tell her.

He has to tell her.

He doesn't know how.

"I want to tell you," he says, realizing it's true. His greatest fear, that Skye might know, it's also his most pressing desire. "I want to tell you everything, _so badly_. But I'm scared."

He shrugs.

Skye seems to think about it.

He wonders if she is angry.

(He wonders if she still likes him.)

"What do you need me to do?" she asks instead.

Of course, this being Skye, she has the most unpredictable reaction.

This wasn't in the plan.

"Don't give up, basically," Coulson replies, really meaning something else, something more, trying to sound lighter than he feels. "Don't stop asking questions, don't stop challenging me. Keep telling me I'm being a jerk."

Skye raises an eyebrow.

"I never said you were being a jerk."

"But I could see your face thinking it," he says.

She rolls her eyes but there's a little smile on the corner of her mouth.

"Well, yes, I admit I was thinking that, but only because you're being one right now and I'm mad at you. Being alone in the dark sucks big time, director," she comments, leaning back against the seat.

Coulson wants to say he knows exactly what she means, because these past few months have been the loneliest of his whole life. But he knows it wouldn't be fair of him, saying that.

He just wants to touch her, comfort her.

Knowing that he can't.

His hand goes to touch her shoulder but he stops himself at the last moment.

Skye notices the gesture.

"Is this part of it?" she asks, hitting the bullseye like Skye normally does. "You think if you touch me something bad is going to happen?"

He swallows. He nods. He's stuck, his hand in the air, unable to touch her, unable to stop thinking about touching her.

Skye raises her hand to his.

Coulson doesn't have time to react and suddenly their fingers are laced together and she is caressing the heel of his hand with her thumb and... nothing bad happens. Coulson doesn't feel in danger. He feels warm and safe where their hands meet.

"See?" Skye points out. "The world hasn't exactly ended."

Maybe not. Maybe it has, in a different way.

He twists their hands together, turning them to the side so Skye's hand faces up, studying the picture, feeling every bit of rough skin on Skye's fingers, the precise spots where a well-trained agent would have them. He's so proud of her. And his hands are callused too. Alike. He squeezes her hand, searching for an answer. Still nothing happens. Well, a lot happens, but not the alien, dangerous, I'm-going-insane kind of something. 

He watches Skye's chest raise and fall with long breaths, pleased and anxious about the contact. It looks like this means the world to her and – yes, he's been a jerk. A rationalizing jerk, which is even worse. He didn't mean to leave her alone. He just thought he had to.

"You were wrong about this," she tells him. "Maybe you are wrong about other stuff. Maybe you don't have to... keep pushing me away."

He wants to believe that. Because he never wants to stop touching her like this.

He owes her an explanation about that as well.

"It's not that I don't care," he explains. "It's that caring too much was complicating things for me and I felt like I couldn't afford it. But that wasn't your fault. And you shouldn't have paid for it. I apologize. As your boss. And as... someone who cares."

She's somehow crying again, but he doesn't think she has noticed it. He lets go of her hand and touches his fingers to her wet cheek.

"Shit, I'm sorry. Shit shit shit, _I promise_ I'm not normally this much of a cry-baby," she says, letting out a self-deprecating laugh but then she hardens her expression, annoyed at herself for crying. Then it relaxes again, and she looks at him and chuckles. "And I don't swear this much."

"It's okay."

Skye grabs his shoulder and pulls him towards her. She leaning forward and then her lips are on his. The touch is light, almost unintrusive. But it's definitely a kiss. And it's nice and vibrant in a way he thought nothing in his life would be again. It's almost encouraging.

(She still likes him)

Coulson doesn't know how he should feel. He knows how he feels – he just doesn't know how he _should_ feel. He's not used to having crying girls pressing wet kisses to his mouth like this. And this is Skye, it's alarming. It's enjoyable. It's many thing. It's all things at the same time.

When she pulls away she looks just as embarrassed for having kissed him as for having cried in front of him.

"So much for being mad at you. Sorry," she says, "you probably didn't mean that you cared for me like that."

Coulson shakes his head. It's too late for lies or excuses or dignity.

"No, that's exactly what I meant," he admits.

"Oh," she says, looking profoundly wrong-footed. "I don't really have a reply to that."

Coulson looks around the garage.

"I think this is appropriate," he says.

"What?"

"That we had our first kiss in Lola."

Skye narrows her eyes at him, but there's something terribly hesitant and breakable in her voice when she speaks, despite the flirty tone.

" _First_? As in... there'll be more?"

Coulson grabs Skye by the knee and pulls her gently to him.

The second kiss is teasing and sweet, like he is trying to make a point, a hint of tongue, a soft brush of teeth against her lower lip.

The third kiss is reassuring, Skye pulling him in, trembling hand holding on to his shoulder so tightly, opening her mouth under his. She's not crying anymore.

The fourth kiss makes him let out a small moan of relief against Skye's mouth, when she rests her hand over his chest, his heart.

The fifth – 

Coulson loses count.


End file.
